Troy Times August 8, 1908
(Retyped)

AN ATTRACTIVE GRANVILLE RESIDENCE
With photo by G. A. Goodspeed and caption “The Pines” the new home of F.C. Sheldon,
a prominent slate manufacturer of Granville

T he Pines, the elegant residence of F.C. Sheldon at Granville, recently completed at a cost of more than $50,000, and which has been under construction for more than two years, is one of the ornaments of the town. The house is built upon the site off North Street known as the former red slate quarry. The style of the house both outside and inside is modern Colonial. The walls are of solid slate stone eighteen inches thick, taken from the quarry near which it is built, the corners being of cement blocks molded for the purpose. The house has a front elevation of some fifty feet from the highway. About midway between the house and highway a heavy wall has been built, to which the lawn is terraced from the house. The south side is a gradual grade to the highway from which the entrance road is constructed and covered with red slate chips. The front plaza is twelve feet wide, the length being the width of the house, with a circle finish on the north. It has 800 square feet of floor surface. The south side has a porte-cochere through which the driveway leads to the barn. The upper or observation veranda is about fifteen feet square, extending out from the centre of the house and supported by heavy columns, extending up from the ground. From this veranda a beautiful view of the Mettowee Valley is obtained. The location is the most commanding in the valley, and when the grounds are fully completed it will be the most beautiful residence place in Granville.

The house inside is finished in hardwood, the living rooms and library being in mahogany, with olive green walls; the dining room, hall and den are in quartered oak; the dining room is twenty-five feet by fourteen feet, the ceiling is beamed and the walls wainscoted and paneled, while tapestry adorns the panels; the halls are also wainscoted, the wall decoration being of golden brown burlap, and the den is beamed, wainscoted and finished in Old English style. This room has a mantel made of red slate stone taken from the quarry on the grounds. The floors are all quartered oak and wainscoted. The upstairs is finished in soft tints to blend with the wall decorations, which are very dainty and well carried out. The house has a homelike air, which is its chief charm, and the furnishings are handsome. The oriental rugs are exceptionally beautiful, among them being some real antiques.

Mr. Sheldon, the owner, was a well-known former resident of North Adams, Mass. He went to Granville several years ago and opened a quarry, and has since become one of the leading slate manufacturers in that vicinity. Several social functions have been given at “The Pines” since the residence was occupied by the family.

S tephen Lynch came upon the property by chance while reading a regional travel magazine. The realtor had a simple ad with a photo of the building that caught his eye. He is a structural engineer and was intrigued by the architecture. He called the realtor and told him that he would be passing through the area on business and would like to study the structure, but he was not in the market. The realtor obliged his request. As Stephen first walked through the building he recognized the quality of the original construction and was saddened by the deterioration. Much of the initial detail was hidden or long gone. Stephen envisioned what it must have been like in its heyday. He decided that he should save and restore the estate even though it made no sense as a home for a bachelor and his dog, Amanda. Stephen justified the project to himself by conceiving of the use as an inn with a limited number of guest rooms. He had traveled extensively and knew what he liked and did not like in an Inn or B&B. When Stephen called his widowed mother to tell her that he had placed an offer on a decrepit 100-year old 34 room mansion to restore, she simply asked “Are you all right dear?” Later, she saw the property and could also see the potential.

One month after purchasing the property Stephen met the woman who would become his wife. Marianne is a Special Education teacher. Their courtship paralleled the restoration. Both spent countless hours on everything from demolition to painstaking refinements to decorating and furnishing the home with beautiful antiques. But the most notable aspect was the romance that took place as they labored. You hear stories of some couple’s trials while updating a single bathroom. They courted during a major restoration and learned what a wonderful team they made. On New Year’s Eve, 2002 Stephen proposed, appropriately, on the Piazza of the mansion and Marianne accepted. They were married at the mansion in July, 2004 on the Piazza, on the same spot he proposed, with friends and family gathered around them. Their home has come to symbolize their relationship; starting from the beginning with hopes and visions of what could be, building upon those dreams, facing difficulties and even tragedies together, pushing forward to achieve their goals and celebrating their triumphs with family and friends.

Less than a month after they became engaged, in January of 2003, a terrible tragedy struck Stephen and Marianne. They had worked hard for months, often long into the night, and had made strong progress together. Then a fire sprinkler pipe in a closet on the third floor froze during record-breaking cold and broke while they were away at work and an estimated twenty thousand gallons of water gushed out at high pressure, flooding most of the building. The scene was surreal as Stephen came home to enter a darkened house with water flowing everywhere inside and ice as much as two feet thick already formed on the outside walls. Marianne arrived shortly after and broke into tears. They were devastated. It was thought that the building was a total loss but they were determined to save it. Two tractor-trailer size generators were brought in to run pumps, heaters and dozens of dehumidifiers. They carefully dried everything out and started over on what was now a much more daunting project.

Stephen served as the General Contractor for the restoration. He comes from a family of engineers, architects and builders and credits his father as his mentor for this type of project. The conversion to a health care facility had taken a toll. The utilitarian needs had obliterated many artistic embellishments. The original oak parquet floors had been coated with a thick layer of black tar and covered with heavy linoleum to provide an impermeable surface. Additional layers of plywood, linoleum and carpeting had been added over the years. Ceilings had been lowered. Moldings and paneling had been removed or covered with sheetrock. Walls had been rearranged. Precious features had been damaged without regard. The task of restoring the property was long and arduous. The hardened tar over the original quarter-sawn oak parquet floors could not be sanded, planed or chemically removed. It was recommended that new flooring be installed, but Stephen and Marianne were determined to restore the original. After thoroughly searching for any other possible way, it became evident that the only way to remove 60 year old tar was to tediously scrape and chip it off with a dull putty knife to avoid damage. Just the tar removal alone required over two thousand man-hours, most of which was done by Stephen on his hands and knees. He and Marianne knew that they had made the right decision when they finished the work and saw the beautiful original floors, which had a different pattern in every room. The floors also provided an accurate “floor plan” with their unique patterns to determine the original placement of walls, some of which had been altered over the years. Other aspects of the project were costly and tedious including the restoration of custom moldings. The crown moldings are composed of up to twelve separate custom moldings combined to create an impressive effect. The thirty four original 100-year old cast iron radiators, some weighing close to a thousand pounds, had to be disconnected and carefully sandblasted outside to remove multiple layers of wall paint that had obscured their beautiful filigree details. Today they serve both functionally and as beautiful focal points in each room.

Granville Sentinel
Thursday, January 4, 1934
(Retyped)

Fred C. Sheldon’s Sudden Death Shocks the Entire Community
Was Found Suffocated in His Garage Yesterday
Granville Slate Manufacturer Was Adjusting Automobile
Chains When Overcome by Monoxide Gas – Had Run
His Car Inside Out of the Cold and Left Doors Partly
Open but not Sufficient to Carry off Poison Gas.

Granville was shocked to the depths yesterday afternoon when word reached the village that Fred C. Sheldon had been found dead in his garage at his home on North Street.  He had evidently been at work putting on his tire chains when he was overcome with monoxide gas.  He was found about 4:00 by Russell Flower, who has been in Mr. Sheldon’s employ for a number of years.  Mr. Flower immediately called Dr. W. E. Owen, who in turn summoned the coroner, Dr. H. C. Davies.  The garage doors were only partly open, not sufficiently wide to permit the deadly fumes to pass to the outside.  Mr. Sheldon laid beside a rear wheel of his Ford coupe, one tire chain on and the other partly adjusted.  He had been in the house after dinner and later started for downtown, evidently intending to use his small car, which was outside.  He ran it into the garage out of the cold to put on the chains, with the result as described. 

Mr. Sheldon had been about his business in the morning and was in his usual good health and spirits.  He was expected at his office at about the time he was found in the garage.  When word was sent out that he was dead it seemed almost impossible to believe, as he had been seen during the day and by so many people.

Fred Sheldon was sixty-three years old and came to Granville about thirty years ago.  Thirty-five years ago he was united in marriage with Bertha Thorne who survives, together with his mother, who is 85 years of age and lives in Greenfield Mass., and two sisters, Mrs. F. H. Clarkson of Springfield Mass. And Mrs. F. H. Brown of Greenfield, Mass.

He had been one of this country’s most important slate manufacturers and was president of the F. C. Sheldon Slate Company and of the Sheldon Slate Products Company.  He owned quarries in Poultney, Pawlet, Wells, Granville and Rupert and had employed some men about all the time since the depression started.  His men were loyal and he never forgot their trials.  When his men worked they were paid good wages and they appreciated his considerate attitude toward them always.

As a hobby, Mr. Sheldon owned one of the finest farms and Ayrshire dairies in this section of the state.  He took great pride in these and made his efforts show good results. 

As a good neighbor and friend he could not be surpassed and his kindness to many will long be remembered.  His beneficence was a marked trait in his character but he cared little for demonstration and said nothing of the many kind things he did for others.  He will be sorely missed in this community where he had lived so long and became so well and favorably known.

Fred Sheldon was honorable in his business and expected the same of those with whom he dealt.  He took keen pleasure in settling accounts owed others and did so to the limit of his capacity.  The depression affected the slate business, as all other lines of endeavor, but he took it all philosophically, doing the best he could and meeting adverse conditions in a much cooler and collected manner than have many other men in high positions of responsibility.  His outlook on life was good and he enjoyed it.  No man got more out of twenty-four hours than did Fred Sheldon.  His delight in horses resulted in his becoming an efficient horseman and his familiar figure riding by each morning in good weather, with a cordial greeting to those he met, will be missed in Granville.

The deceased was a member of Granville Masonic lodge and Chapter, Calvary Commandery and Oriental Temple, A.A.O.N.M.B of Troy: a past president of the Granville Rotary club, a vestryman of Trinity Episcopal church, Past president of the National Slate Association and had been a delegate at various times to political conventions.  He was also a past president of the Granville Masonic club.

The editor of the Sentinel feels deeply the passing of a loyal and true friend; one who always stood by, had a word of encouragement, and could understand the trials of the times and whose companionship was as refreshing as a mountain brook.  The loss of such a man as Fred Sheldon leaves a void in life-makes us realize how few are our days-but it brings to us that full understanding of the blessings arising from true and loyal friendship.  He has gone to a just reward and we grieve at his passing; but we enjoyed him while he was with us and we will hold his memory as one of our choicest possessions.

The sympathy of the entire community goes out to the sorrowing wife, mother and sisters at this time of their bereavement.

Funeral services will be held at the home Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. with Calvary Commandery, Knights Templar of Hudson Falls in charge.  Rev. Henry Hogg, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, will also officiate.

Granville Sentinel
November 17, 1960
(Retyped)

Always youthful, Bertha Owen personified ‘dignity’ at all times
By Morris Rote-Rosen

I f there was ever one person in our village who we couldn’t visualize as getting old it was Bertha Thorne Sheldon Owen. And we sincerely regret the passing of one who was a good friend of ours for more than half a century. With the impression of her as we knew her shortly after she was married to Fred C. Sheldon, we carried the image of her as a young person all these years. It was only shortly before her passing that we realized that the years were catching up with her. She always appeared youthful not only in spirit but also physically and when we saw her a short time before she died, walking with the unsteady step of old age, it brought a feeling of sadness.

From our knowledge of her she always applied the Golden Rule in her everyday life with her friends; Bertha Owen never passed a person on the street without nodding pleasantly or extending a kindly greeting to those with whom she was acquainted. She was kind-hearted, gracious, religious and she personified a dignity, which was in keeping with her ancestry of the Society of Friends. We spent some pleasant moments in the company of her and Dr. W. E. Owen and their welcome to us was always warm and friendly.

Her father Leonard C. Thorne came to Granville in 1875, when he bought the Thorne homestead from Consider Bardwell, who erected it in 1869. Leonard Thorne was a noted temperance advocate and a well-known Abolitionist who while employed as a young man in a men’s furnishing store in New York City, boxed a young Negro porter and his brother into a dry goods case and smuggled them out to Canada. Before coming to Granville, Leonard Thorne was editor of the Christian Herald. He married Hannah Rogers Warren, widow of John “Jock” Warren who was a well known Granville merchant on our Main Street during and after the Civil War.

On a winter evening we called on Dr. and Mrs. Owen, while Dr. Owen was enjoying a game of cards with a group of Granville friends with whom he played regularly at his home. We sat upstairs in the Thorne homestead (now the Juckett Funeral Parlor building) and talked about her early life as a child and as a young lady in our community. Bertha Owen said that she had lived in the Thorne home until she was 21, then she married Fred C. Sheldon, the ceremony was performed in the Trinity Episcopal Church on Feb. 8, 1889 and the reception was held at the home.

A Quaker
Mr. And Mrs. Sheldon lived in North Adams, Mass., for about three years and then returned to Granville to live with her widowed mother. She had a brother, Leonard Thorne, who also lived with his mother and it was he who got Fred C. Sheldon interested in the Granville slate industry. Slate business was at an all time high about that time and Sheldon, who was a traveling salesman for a shoe manufacturer, decided to try the slate business. He signed a lease to operate a quarry which was then known as the old Mike Welch quarry and he was so successful with it that in a short time he became the second largest producer of slate, only second to the Norton Brothers.

Bertha Owen was born a Quaker. Her father Leonard and her mother Hannah were both members of the Granville Society of Friends. When Bertha’s mother married “Jock” Warren, who was a member of Trinity, Bertha was baptized in that church at the age of two years. When she died, she was the oldest member of that church. The Thorne homestead today is practically the same as when it was erected 90 years ago and for many years it was one of the show places of Granville. At one time there were large shade trees surrounding the home and a wooden fence along the sidewalk was so much a part of the home as was the spraying umbrella fountain for many years.

Bertha Owen recalled that these beautiful trees which lined the Thorne residence were planted five years before she was born and until recent years she informed us she carried a love for those trees because of her pleasant recollections of scenes and incidents when she played among them as a little girl. No person ever passed by the Thorne home in years past without stopping to admire the home and in particular the fountain depicting a little boy and girl crowding under an open umbrella from the end which there was a constant spray of water dripping over the umbrella.

We were interested in the origin of the fountain, which attracted attention. Bertha said that her stepfather presented it to her mother after he bought it at the Philadelphia Centennial, which they had visited. He had it shipped and set up on the lawn. It is of bronze and a replica of the original well-known statue.

‘Belle of Ball’
Bertha spent an active life in Granville, in her younger days she led a busy social life, she was the “belle of the ball”, she was attractive in any group, she stood out at parties and dances by her good looks, shapely figure and warm personality and always wore the latest in women’s fashions. She was a member of the Shakespeare Club and of Captain Israel Harris Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, an active member in the Travel Club; she traveled widely and visited Florida, California, Cuba and Mexico.

We once recalled our friendship with her mother, Hannah Rogers Thorne Warren. She beamed and said: “My mother was one of the finest persons anyone ever met. She was a beautiful personality and was always an honored guest at all my social affairs in our home.” Bertha Owen from time to time would stop at the office while on her way down Main Street. We admired her more in her declining years having known her background, which brought reverses to her as well as tragedy but she never let it obscure the sunshine of her smile and beauty of her character.

She was one of the last real Granville natives living on Main Street. At her death she was the oldest of her generation in our village. After the death of Dr. W. E. Owen, she seemed to slow up and take on the feebleness of old age and did not come down the street as often as she used to. But until the last, she was youthful in spirit. Her memory was good and we talked about many of the older generation now gone with whom she was busily engaged in community activities, supporting any worthwhile project that meant for a better Granville.